Lachen, um nicht zu weinen …

In this article the prevalent concepts on crying will first be described, especially concepts on occasions and various functions of crying. Subsequently, some very preliminary results of an ongoing study are presented including assumptions about the reasons why crying is mostly experienced as being difficult and aversive and is therefore often suppressed or controlled by laughter. Examples from diagnostic interviews will illustrate the interplay of laughter or smiling and crying. At the end a hypothesis on the basic function of crying and on the connection between crying and laughter will be presented.     

Familienfunktionalität und Therapieerfolg

Background

Even though it is a treatment standard of child psychotherapy to involve the parents, hardly any research has been carried out about the impact of family functioning on treatment outcome. Aims of the present study were to investigate the change in and the prognostic power of family functioning on treatment outcome of short-term psychodynamic psychotherapy in children and adolescents.

Patients and methods

The sample consisted of 54 children and adolescents undergoing outpatient short-term psychodynamic psychotherapy. To assess family functioning, their parents were asked to complete the Family Assessment Measure (FAM).

Results

Patients from families with high levels of functioning in task accomplishment, communication and affective expression were more often treated successfully. Improvement in levels of functioning in role performance, emotionality and control were only found in the group of successfully treated patients.

Conclusion

Family functioning is a decisive factor in the differential indication of psychotherapeutic treatment in children and adolescents.     

Principles of Systematic Theology

The Holy Trinity is the ontological principle of Christian systematic theology. Its external or objective cognitive principle is the divine Word, by which, through the prophets and apostles and with the illumination of the Spirit, God's incommunicable self-knowledge is accommodated to the saints. The internal or subjective cognitive principle is the redeemed intelligence of the saints. Systematic theology is thus ectypal knowledge (derived from God's disclosure of his archetypal self-knowledge), and a subaltern or subordinate science. Its matter is twofold: God, and all things in God. Accordingly, it is best arranged as a treatment of God in himself, followed by a treatment of the outer works of God, with a theology of the divine missions as the hinge between the two. This arrangement offers a synthetic and conceptual transposition of the primary language of Scripture.     

Onlineberatung für Betroffene von Essstörungen und deren Angehörige

An independent online consulting service for persons with eating disorders and their relatives (www.ab-server.de) exists in Germany since 1998, which was developed by physicians and psychologists. This study aims to comprehend the individual use of the online consulting for affected persons and their relatives. In order to do this, two online questionnaires were developed for these two groups. The questionnaires were sent digitally in two phases to those people who had posted an e-mail to the online consulting service from January 1999 to November 2003 and from January 2004 to July 2006 (phase 1: n=2,760; phase 2: n=1,419). A total of 493 data sets of affected persons and 127 of relatives were included in the analysis. The online consulting service is of great importance especially to establish the user’s first contact with professional help. The main reported effects were an improved understanding of the disease and the motivation to seek further professional help. This specific setting of internet-based intervention fulfils the function of a signpost within the German supply system.     

Körperbeschwerden bei niedergelassenen Psychologischen Psychotherapeuten

From June until August 2004 we asked 488 freely practising psychological psychotherapists in selected German federal states for the frequency of somatic complaints using the short version of the Gießener Beschwerdebogen (GBB-)24. It turned out that the psychotherapists suffered most from exhaustion and pain. Their somatic complaints were remarkably less influenced by sociodemographic characteristics like age, gender and location of practising (East/West). In comparison to the overall population the psychotherapists in total reported quantitatively the same frequencies of somatic complaints. Qualitatively the psychotherapists reported less problems concerning gastric and heart complaints but more problems concerning exhaustion than the overall population. Compared with a sample of saxonian general practitioners, the psychotherapists suffered from slightly less somatic complaints.     

Innerdeutsche Migration und psychisches Befinden

In a representative study German migrants within Germany were assigned to two different groups depending on their answers to the following two questions (?Where did you mainly grow up – Eastern Germany or Western Germany?“ and ?Where do you live now?“). The migrants (54 West-East and 68 East-West migrants) were compared with non-migrants (1,136 Western and 294 Eastern Germans) concerning different variables of their psychic condition. Migrants suffered from higher stress, less bodily well-being and more somatic symptoms than non-migrants. Probands migrating from Western to Eastern Germany reported the lowest levels of quality of life.     

Dissoziative Störungen (Konversionsstörungen)

The ICD-10 diagnostic category of dissociative disorders encompasses very different clinical pictures. The so called dissociative disorders of consciousness are characterized by functional disturbances to the psychic domains of consciousness, identity, autobiographic memory and experience of self and the world. The core features of conversion disorders are functional alterations in the sensorimotor systems. The phenomenological heterogeneity is reflected by prevalence rates ranging from very rare to 30% in clinical populations. Traumatic experiences play a crucial role in the etiology and pathogenesis of these disorders. High rates of comorbid disorders, a tendency to a chronic course and a somatic illness concept in patients with conversion disorders complicate the psychotherapeutic approach. Depending on the therapeutic goals, both psychodynamic and cognitive-behavioral treatment forms are suitable.